The Orthodox social network “Elitsa” is a modern platform for strengthening connections between Orthodox people around the world and developing parish life around churches. The project is open to both Orthodox Christians and those who are just looking for the path to God.
Social network “Elitsa” ( translated from Church Slavic – “those who, how many there are”
) began its work in May 2014 with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' and under the care of Bishop Savva of the Resurrection. The founders and leaders of the Elitsa network are parishioners of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Sheremetyevo.
The goal of the project is to help a person come to God, unite Orthodox people, develop and strengthen parish life.
The mission of the project is to show people that Orthodoxy gives fullness and joy to life, and that being Orthodox is more interesting and useful than “the lonely center of the universe.”
The Elitsa network cooperates with many Dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church, with the synodal departments of the Moscow Patriarchate, takes part in church-wide congresses, festivals, forums, readings, and the Orthodox Church Abroad also shows great interest.
In addition to the standard functionality that exists in other secular social networks - communication, receiving and exchanging information - the Elitsa network has unique capabilities created to meet the needs of the entire Orthodox world: parishioners, those who are just coming to God, clergy, church specialists, etc. .
PARISHERS
Thanks to the social network, “Elits” know the names and activities of their accomplices, have the opportunity to ask accumulated and unresolved questions to the clergy of their church, and become closer by offering, organizing and participating in useful parish events. A parish with a developed parish life also becomes attractive to new parishioners.
RECENTS
temples have the opportunity to use the temple community feed to publish important information for parishioners.
The rector can:
- notify parishioners about the needs of the parish;
- identify organizational leaders;
- organize fundraising for specific needs of the temple or for events;
- distribute tasks for organizing events and monitor their implementation;
- get to know your parishioners better.
CHURCH SPECIALISTS
for youth, missionary, catechetical and other ministries, they have a functional parish platform on the community page, as well as a church-wide platform for inter-parish exchange of experience in specializations. The opportunity to organize parish and inter-parish events has become very popular. There is a separate section on the website for this. Also, a new offer for specialists is the holding of webinars (online seminars) on the network site.
SUNDAY SCHOOL LEADERS
In the Sunday school section on the church page, they can publish class schedules, messages for parents, discuss pressing issues with them, organize the preparation and holding of their own events, and, of course, have “feedback.”
UNCHURCHED USERS
Thanks to the “Elitsa” network, they can ask questions to famous priests in the “Questions to the Father” service, as well as take a closer look at the life of their parishes.
PRIESTS
Those registering on the network are subject to moderation checks to ensure that “mummers”, schismatics and sectarians do not get into the network. After all, they will have to answer questions from users, and for some this will be their first communication with a cleric.
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Thanks to the network, they have the opportunity to feel like full-fledged and sought-after members of the parish community.
FOR PARISH, DIOCESAL AND OTHER MEDIA
The Elitsa social network is an inexhaustible source of unique topics for publications.
In the near future, the functionality of the network will be expanded with a large set of new services and intranet projects.
Reviews about the social network “Elitsa”:
First Deputy Administrator of the Moscow Patriarchate, His Eminence Savva, Bishop of Resurrection:
“This electronic resource is designed in such a way that it can potentially cover Orthodox parishes around the world. In fact, the Orthodox social network “Elitsa”, created specifically for Orthodox communities, can become a convenient platform for discussing common difficulties, exchanging experiences for specialists from different areas of church activity, forming a real living community from a collection of disparate individuals, where parishioners know each other and communicate without only with the clergy, but also among themselves.”
A. I. Osipov, professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, theologian:
“Elitsa” is a good undertaking, and the fact that we have come to this is a natural process. If this project really makes it possible to unite parishioners around their parishes, bring them closer together, provide important information about the parish, and allow them to discuss spiritual issues, then it definitely has great prospects.”
Hieromonk Macarius (Markish), church publicist, missionary:
“Despite the fact that Elitsy is a young project that began its work quite recently, today very serious results have already been achieved. “I am registered in “Elitsa” and I observe how the network is changing every day - the site is becoming more convenient, the number of network users is growing rapidly, they are becoming more active, more and more interesting and useful information is appearing, many new functions and services.”
F. V. Emelianenko, four-time world champion in mixed martial arts in heavyweight, advisor to the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation:
“I see great prospects for the Orthodox social network Elitsa, which allows Orthodox people around the world to unite, communicate, share experiences and help each other.”
Abbot of the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery, Abbot Theophylact (Bezukladnikov):
“Nowadays, fewer and fewer people read books, and more are on social networks, which means we need to convey good positive information to users through them. I see that “Elitsa” is aimed at precisely this. The apostles in their time sowed good seed, and the Elitsa network sows it today, and where it will grow, what benefit it will bring and to whom it will bring - this is already in the hands of the Lord. Therefore, the meaning of such work is very high.”
* in lane from church glory - “those that, how many there are”
Publications about the network "":
- New Orthodox media projects will be presented at the Christmas readings.
- The page of Patriarch Kirill appeared on the Orthodox social network.
- More and more bishops are opening their pages on the Elitsa social network.
- Church abbots will be able to collect donations through the Orthodox social network.
- Fedor Emelianenko: You can only win with faith.
- A large-scale charity platform will appear on the RuNet to help Orthodox parishes.
- The Orthodox social network “Elitsa” calls on clergy to more actively explore the network’s capabilities.
- The social network for Orthodox Christians “Elitsa” has acquired a mobile version.
- At the Christmas Readings they discussed the development of a unified parish map.
- Orthodox social network: Pros and cons. Conversation with the director of the social network “Elitsa” Valery Chepukhalin.
Read all
Rublev.com
News March 3: Yuri Grymov, former producer of the Dozhd TV channel, director and screenwriter launched Russia’s first search engine Publev.com. for Orthodox Internet users. As Grymov said, the Rublev.com system is both a search engine and at the same time a database on Orthodoxy, a kind of “guide for believers” who in the search engine will find answers to all their questions about Orthodoxy. Rublev.com was developed over the course of two years, now the developers are looking for sponsors and funds to release a mobile version of the Orthodox search engine
Source https://www.uf.ru/News/u363/2015/03/04/705336
How they promote
They started by declaring that they were being targeted by making requests for all known words and the fact that the logs were full of “adult” requests to this pious site. And most importantly, they not only created a search engine, but now they are counting on the fact that someone will sponsor them.
Site projects
The Orientation program is a new social network project. The format is a video interview with interesting people. Among the guests are public figures, clergy, economists, historians, authors of social and charitable programs.
Winged Parables is a unique project that today has won the hearts of many people on the Internet. Famous theater, film and television actors read parables that contain the wisdom that each of us needs.
Elitsy TV is a project whose creation has not yet been completed. During the existence of the network, a lot of video content has accumulated, from which you can create real Internet television. The TV channel of the Elitsa network can already be viewed on YouTube, but this is not the final version yet. He will improve and develop.
The Elitsa Media online magazine is an information project that publishes articles daily from famous priests, publicists, public figures, and journalists. The site is designed for a wide audience. Therefore, the topics of publications are very diverse: from socio-political topics to religious ones. More than 80 author's columns have already been registered here. Their number is constantly growing. Among the regular contributors to the site (journalists, publicists and writers) there are many priests.
Another important area of the Elitsa network is the creation and development of online services. “Questions to Father” is the most popular among them. This is an online consulting service. Currently, about 20 priests participate in it and answer user questions. Here you can get help of a spiritual nature, learn the correct interpretation of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and conduct dialogues with the priest. The “Questions for a Psychologist” and “Questions for a Lawyer” services work similarly.
Are Orthodox social networks and search engines necessary?
My answer is no.
What can you find in Rublev.com that cannot be found in Yasha or Gosh?
Can this search work better than Yandex's MatrixNet? No.
What can be done in Elitsy that cannot be done on VKontakte? There's no such thing.
Then why?
Arguments of the creators
1. Secular social networks are clumsy, we will make them better and more “Orthodox”.
You will never make social. the network is better than VKontakte - your level of developers is not the same. As a result, seven will lag, will be clumsy in terms of usability, and the search engine will work more primitively than Yandex in the early 2000s. Features like “in whose honor I was baptized,” “angel’s day” and “holiday of the day” are interesting only to neophytes, reflexively reading everything that is painted in the color of Orthodoxy. If you don’t remember when your friend’s baptism day is, then it doesn’t really matter to you. If you don’t go to church regularly, then the Orthodox calendar (which is on a bunch of websites, available in the form of applications for smartphones, etc.) will not change anything.
2. This is a missionary site (option: a site for uniting Orthodox Christians).
Let's be honest. This is a platform for dividing the Orthodox and imitating catechesis. Who will the priests driven to the site by circular letters catechize? Other persecuted priests? Where does the unchurched majority with the worldview of “Orthodoxy” sit? In normal social networks. Friends of churchgoers are sitting there, and users of social media. Networks are known to sit where their friends and acquaintances sit. Each of us has non-church acquaintances in the majority, and they will not run after us to the clumsy Elitsa. Maybe he should stop suffering from bullshit and catechize those who want to in groups of normal social networks? There is demand.
3. There will be no “pornography.”
For me, VKontakte also has no pornography. When searching for a Video, the kind social network automatically checks the “safe search” box, just as for Yandex the default is “moderate search”, and if desired, the “family filter” can be easily turned on. So, it all depends on the user - if he wants to look for naked women, he will go to another search engine.
And in general, if you are concerned about the problem of adult content, install protection, for example from Kaspersky Lab. But the problem is not in the protection system, but in the user’s head.
The presence of vulgarity in the news feed also depends on the person himself - choose for yourself who you are friends with, whose news you read (and whether you read it at all), in which communities you sit. If a person is accustomed to absorbing content indiscriminately, then in Orthodox social networks. he won’t stick around on networks anyway - there won’t be enough fresh content, even if he starts posting it himself. But the feeds of his non-Orthodox friends from ordinary social networks will be specifically lost in Orthodox quotes, etc.
Why did this bother me?
Okay, in our diocese the bishop sends letters from such projects to specialists for analysis and feedback, while in others they simply issue a circular inviting priests to go, register and be a missionary to someone unknown.
Priests and youth workers spend their time trying to help people, sponsors spend money to support the project, and in the end:
- Almost zero emissions. One high-quality article on PravMir will bring much more benefit than kilometers of texts in Elitsy.
- The money spent on the development of the project would have brought much more benefit if it had been invested in, say, a dozen anti-abortion articles.
- The owner of a social network, creating it to amuse his ego (and make money), ultimately closes the project, not being obligated to anything either to the priesthood or to sponsors.
Friends, rather than creating yet another useless alternative platform, it’s better to salt the existing ones. And never appeal to administrative resources when promoting a project. Failure to promote yourself is the certain death of a startup in the next couple of years.
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